BG

September 8, 2011

I don't usually write about the technology or software that I use but decided it is time I write what I think about Family Tree Maker Software.

Since the early versions were available I've been a user of FTM software. I appreciated its user-friendliness and all that it could do in generating family trees, genealogy reports, export of gedcoms etc. Having said that, as far as I am concerned version 16 was the best! Yes..I said *16*. I began with version 3 and over the years we were offered an upgrade every year. I also remember an upgrade after six months! Imagine that while some software was offering free downloads to upgrades those of us who were faithful FTM users kept shelling out the $$ to remain current with the software.

After version 16, the software was stripped to bare bones and the re-building began. I've purchased each new version and now Ancestry is about to launch Family Tree Maker 2012 that has been in public beta but will undoubtedly be available for purchase before long. I wonder when we can stop purchasing a yearly update and have been wondering what will is new in this updated version.

Here is what I found:

The main new feature is the ability to synchronize your tree between Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com and we're especially focused on making sure that works well.

Here is a list of new features:

1. TreeSync - Ability to synchronize your tree between FTM and Ancestry.2. Blended family view - Easily show all of the children for two spouses whether they are children of one or both of them.3. Index of Individuals Report4. Chart improvements

Show generation labelsAdd text anywhere on a chartOption to limit descendant chart to the direct line between two people

5. Report improvements

Custom fact sentences (used in genealogy reports & Smart StoriesAutomatic Smart Story generation includes primary individual, spouse, and childrenResearch notes report changed to "Notes Report" with options to include other types of notes

While I am interested in some of the new features, I'm not crazy about "TreeSync" and I'll tell you why.Over the years I have found many errors in the ancestry.com trees. I even found my own immediate family that someone absconded with from my web site and connected me to the incorrect grandmother. How bad is that?

Another person had one of my aunts as having had a number of children, one of which her husband supposedly descended. The truth is that this aunt had three children who all died as babies. I have all of the death records.

On top of that, as an Acadian researcher, I know without a doubt that a great number of trees on Ancestry contain errors. People have simply copied from others what they found on Ancestry or elsewhere and added it to their own data long before we had access to more accurate information now available to us. Because of the Acadian deportation from Nova Scotia in 1755, Acadian genealogy has been difficult at best. So I know what I'm talking about with what I've seen in those trees. I predict that some will have a multitude of errors they will have to spend a great deal of time deleting from their database - or - start over.

So for now that's my take especially on the "TreeSync" feature - I will not use it.

As for the rest, we shall see. Long ago, I asked that Family Tree Maker contain colors we can use to code male/female lines. I think that would be a really nice feature. We could use a color for our direct ancestors too. For now what I do is I capitalize the names of all of my grandparents - that makes it easy to see/find my lines without have to spend a whole lot of time trying to find who was who but that's me.

Lastly, I want to say that I am truly weary of having to update FTM every year. Oh I know people will say it is my choice but here is the hook: if you update each version as it is made available, you get a good discount - if you wait until yet another version, you pay full price.

I would love to hear from other FTM users who would like to share an evaluation of what they think.

Meanwhile, I did look at other software when I was at NERGC in April. The only thing that keeps me from making the leap is the ability to access ancestry.com records from the FTM software - I must admit that is a plus.

Lucie, Personally I feel the same way about Treesync as you do. I would like the option as in past versions to send several family ahnentafels or family group reports to family and friends. I also would like that color option as well. Hope it is better than the last,even though it was OK,it still left more to be desired.

I think the difficult thing people do not realize is that there are so many errors online when it comes to our Acadian ancestors.

I believe that when you have a lot of early on English settlers in your ineages that probably works quite well. Of course, I can't attest to that since all of my ancestors arrives from Canada in the late 1880s ;)

By the way, I totally agree with you about problems with trees that have been made public over the years. I do NOT use them. (period)

This feature is a little different and YOU or the Owner of the tree has lots of options, and I won't go into them.

But, consider this, and it took me a long time to understand this.

I have a friend who is working with his grandmother in their family research. They do not live in the same state and at times in the same county.

My daughter and I worked on her tree, as she has a Mac, and the Mac version had not come out yet.

Two examples of a reason for the Ancestry Member Tree (AMT). Both examples show how two or more people can contribute to the development of that Tree.

The issue about the "earlier" trees is that there wasn't any control. Folks just published, in many case, undocumented GEDCOM files.

What FTM2012 provides for "us" the users, is the ability to work in both worlds. That is, the grandmother who works online, or my daughter who works online, to be able to have the other person work on the same tree using FTM2012.

Making the Tree Private, being able to turn OFF the index being able to find that tree, and giving people control over what they can and can not do, reduces those "junk-ea-logy" that we have seen in the past.

WE, users of Family Tree Maker do NOT have to update to fTM2012 if we have not intention of using the AMT. However, there are other features, from what I have read, the Blended Family feature.

I am not disagreeing with anything that you have said or the other comments, only trying to bring up the "other side" of the issue.

WE will have to see how FTM2012 works out. There WILL BE a large population of users who will love this feature, there will also be others who will not.

But then there are others who HATE FTM2008 - FTM2011. Can't change that.

I have been using Family Tree Maker since Version 3.4 and in my humble opinion, FTM2011 is the best version so far.

From what I have seen about FTM2012, and I am a fan of AMT, up until now, I will have to re-consider it's use. I have met a number of cousin's that I have connected with, that FTM2012 might be the way to do some collaboration in the future.

I hope there is a way to opt out of Tree Sync, since I don't use it either. I have a tree on there only for my private use to use on my iPhone Ancestry app. Period. I'm not interested in any other use, for all your reasons and many more.

As I understand it the tree synch is so I can update my tree, either online at Ancestry.com or on FTM2012 and then "synch" them so I don't have to enter the information twice. It will not just automatically pull stuff from some random tree and combine it with mine. If you don't have a tree at Ancestry it is simply a feature you won't use but for those of us that do choose to share our trees there it's a great feature that I'm really looking forward to.

I remember when there was an index of individuals and even though I had tens of thousands of names and a dot matrix printer, it didn't take forever to print. Lucie, I did find a way in 2011 to do a descendant tree from a particular ancestor to a paticular descendant. Hidden but there. In the meantime, so many features went by the wayside and being re-introduced but sometimes not as well. I too like it to link to the actual records and rarely use the family trees other people have entered, except as possible clues. I check where they found the information and many cite World Family Tree as their source! Really?

Because a user has the control to make his tree either public or private he can control completely who sees it or not. As to the ability to edit the tree that is one hundred percent in the control of the owner of the tree. Nothing can be altered on the tree without the owner granting permission to someone to make them an Editor. I have used the beta and the most amazing ability of the tree sync feature is the ability to correct address and place name errata in a large tree that has been developed over a long time. Because on the desk top FTM has a place name editor that is global and tied to mapping software updating place names in a 40,000 person tree becomes doable while still allowing complete collaboration from a number of individuals without having to exchange mutliple ged files everytime and re linking shared resources such as census extracts, images, and documents.

I agree that the other trees one finds on Ancestry are not to be trusted at face value and that any one who uses the Family tree - Ancestry Hint link is committing Genealogical suicide but there are also an awful lot of committed conscientious users out there who can offer invaluable incites and direction, sources and leads that working alone and in isolation one would never find.

One last observation is that the electronic sources available on ancestry itself and the robustness of the online application beat hands down my ability to transcribe data on my desktop to FTM or PAF from hard copy every time.

Thank you for your post Robin. I have purchased 2012 and am eager to give it a try.

I agree about the ancestry hint leaves... anyone who takes anything on the trees people have contributed would have to be ready to prove whatever information they want to take. I agree that there are many conscientious researchers who own some of the trees but we've no way of knowing who is and who isn't.

My personal preference is to always use original records for research. To date the people I've contacted on ancestry who purported to be related to me were not - their connections to my lineages has thus far been erroneous.

As far as transcriptions go: I have been finding quite a few errors. Any transcriptions done by humans are bound to reflect a 25% margin of error when being transcribed - I always believed that and it was confirmed at a conference I attended on Saturday

Again, thanks for the information you have posted. I really appreciate it.

Lucie

I have been doing more research on FTM2012 and plan to write an update to my evaluation.

To be honest, I will never use Sync because I will never post my tree on ancestry.com because when I leave ancestry.com - and I surely will at some point - my tree would remain on their web site. I think that the sync feature is a way to get more and more people to post their trees on ancestry.. that's my take on it ;)

As an ancestry.ca member for years and a user of Family Tree Maker I'd like to clarify the following:- You don't have to share your "sync'ed" tree with anyone you don't wish to. You don't have to make it public and you can choose not to have it included in searches by other members of ancestry.-you can control who can see and edit your tree allowing you to contribute with you on your tree.-sync is a great feature when using a laptop (for road trips) and a desktop as they all have the same information.-you control what information is in your tree. Garbage in, garbage out. It is only entered if you allow it.-You can delete your tree at any time. This will fully delete your information including all media items from the ancestry site. I have often uploaded part of a tree to allow someone to access just their family. Once they were done I delete it.

Like all programs it isn't perfect but it is trying to answer what the users has said they want.

Born and raised in Massachusetts to an Acadian father and French-Canadian mother, I have been working on our family history for many years. I began with my mother's side of the family when I was about 11 years old. It was a long time before I knew my father was Acadian. I love knowing my heritage. It gives me a wonderful sense of who I am.
After all these years, you can imagine how many books I have purchased for research. I've decided it is time to part with some of these precious research materials - thus the creation of this blog "Lucie's Book Nook".
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Lucie LeBlanc Consentino

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Lucie's Legacy, Acadian Ancestral Home, Whispers Through The Willows. This Award is dedicated to my mother Roseanna Levesque LeBlanc. It is awarded to bloggers who keep the memory of their ancestors alive.